New York State to Recognize Gay Marriages

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This thread's a hoot. Dodgy arguments *and* comically obvious hypocrisy!

Anywho, the function of the government is to provide for the people, in an unbiased fashion. F**k religious morals, f**k the Bible, and most importantly f**k Christianity;

Funny definition of "unbiased" there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't believe Okie is a bad person because of his beliefs, although the "I respect them as creations of the almighty" bothered me a bit. You should respect other because they're human beings like you.

Why does that matter [qm]. So long as he respects them, I don't see a problem. He might get there a different way, but he still gets there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It might be "obvious" but it's also stupid and ahistorical.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why?

Should divorce be called "civil division"? Maybe father should be known now as "male child-rearer" and mother as "female child-rearer". Perhaps we ought to rename schools as "places-of-education-for-children". Maybe the word children needs to be changed as well; "small (non-adult) humans" or something like that. And so on and so forth. That's the first point. It's a petty one, but then just about every aspect of this issue is petty* I don't see what's wrong in raising it.

The second point is probably more important, but whenever I've raised it in the past no one's taken any notice of it, so I won't say much. But basically the idea that marriage is or was ever largely a religious institution is absurd, ahistorical and rests on very silly, very inaccurate (and very American) assumptions about the historical role of churches in society and (especially!!!!!!) their relationship to the state.

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See above.

*things such as next-of-kin-status for homosexual couples certainly aren't petty, but the debate over this issue hardly ever looks at that side of things.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If the government recognizes "civil unions" and stays out of the marriage business, it's not going to cause people to stop having "marriages."

You miss my point.

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I didn't say that all aspects of the issue are petty and was actually quite clear about that. I'd be surprised if the symbolic elements to it were of great importance to you, but then no one is predictable beyond a certain point.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Then you'll have to actually explain it, because apparently asking rhetorical questions didn't communicate your point well enough.  I'm at a loss to think of anything else you would you have meant by that, and the "ahistorical" comment.

I dislike the pointless wrecking of relatively minor elements of culture and general ruining of the language that has become so commonplace this past century. I especially don't like it when it's done out of ignorance (ie; this absurd idea that marriage is and was always a purely religious institution).

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What I wrote was this:

*things such as next-of-kin-status for homosexual couples certainly aren't petty, but the debate over this issue hardly ever looks at that side of things.